"LET THEM LAUGH"

The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in.
Round the cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground
enclosed by a low wall of rough stones. Early in the morning
and late in the fading twilight and on all the days Colin
and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there planting
or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and
herbs for his mother. In the company of his "creatures"
he did wonders there and was never tired of doing them,
it seemed. While he dug or weeded he whistled or sang
bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to Soot or Captain
or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.

"We'd never get on as comfortable as we do," Mrs. Sowerby said,
"if it wasn't for Dickon's garden. Anything'll grow for him.
His 'taters and cabbages is twice th' size of any one
else's an' they've got a flavor with 'em as nobody's has."

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When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out
and talk to him. After supper there was still a long
clear twilight to work in and that was her quiet time.
She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on
and hear stories of the day. She loved this time.
There were not only vegetables in this garden.
Dickon had bought penny packages of flower seeds now
and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among
gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders
of mignonette and pinks and pansies and things whose
seeds he could save year after year or whose roots would
bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps.
The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire
because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and
rock-cress and hedgerow flowers into every crevice until
only here and there glimpses of the stones were to be seen.

"All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive, mother,"
he would say, "is to be friends with 'em for sure.
They're just like th' `creatures.' If they're thirsty give
'em drink and if they're hungry give 'em a bit o' food.
They want to live same as we do. If they died I should feel
as if I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless."

It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all
that happened at Misselthwaite Manor. At first she was only
told that "Mester Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into
the grounds with Miss Mary and that it was doing him good.
But it was not long before it was agreed between the two
children that Dickon's mother might "come into the secret."
Somehow it was not doubted that she was "safe for sure."

So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story,
with all the thrilling details of the buried key and the
robin and the gray haze which had seemed like deadness
and the secret Mistress Mary had planned never to reveal.
The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him,
the doubt of Mester Colin and the final drama of his
introduction to the hidden domain, combined with the
incident of Ben Weatherstaff's angry face peering over
the wall and Mester Colin's sudden indignant strength,
made Mrs. Sowerby's nice-looking face quite change color
several times.